Category: Lensbaby

Day 83 – Feather

Feather

This has been one of the slowest paced Road Scholar trips I’ve ever been on. Which is a good thing because it means I have time to go for walks on the beach and post pictures in between lectures and field trips. The weather has improved significantly so I got in a walk this morning before lunch and after our lesson about salmon and albacore tuna. We’re going out for dinner tonight so I wanted to get an image posted before our wine tasting lesson coming up in a half hour. Feathers on the beach are one of my favorite things. I really love what the sweet 50 did with the grains of sand on this shot. In post processing I added clarity, vibrance and a touch of saturation, also a high pass filter to bring out the detail in the feather.

Day 82 – Mushroom

Mushroom

We had a very short walk in the forest this afternoon but I was overwhelmed with the selection of mushrooms available for photographing. Many had flat tops but this one with the pointy top was my fav. I opened the shadows and bumped up the exposure a little. Then added a high pass filter. I may have to go back on Friday with the big girl camera and have more fun with mushrooms.

Day 81 – Beach Walker

BeachWalker

So, today was mostly a travel day and it mostly rained. Though I have to say if you have a chance to drive the road from Sutherlin to Reedsport along the Umpqua River the colors are just stunning right now. I’m hoping the weather will be a little better when I go home.

In any case I stopped in Depoe Bay and played a little with some Wind Socks on display and the sweet 50 but I didn’t get anything I really loved. So when I got settled in my hotel room I stepped out on the balcony to take some pictures of the beautiful view and decided to play with the Omni again. One of it’s attachments is called the rainbow filter. I still can’t get it to do exactly what I want but I liked the effect on this image and the lone beach walker. To process it I took it in to Nik Color Efex Pro to add detail because the clouds were very washed out. I also bumped up the vibrance and saturation to emphasize the rainbow effect a little more. I thought about adding a texture but realized I don’t have any textures on my laptop and I forgot to bring the portable hard drive that has them along. So, short of downloading some onto the laptop it looks like I won’t be using any textures this trip.  

Day 80 – Bear Creek ala Cezanne

BearCreek

Since I am starting a week long photo expedition tomorrow I thought I could get away with pulling from the archives for one more day. This one was taken with the Trio 28 at North Mountain Park the other day. I bumped up the vibrance and saturation then took it into Topaz Studio for an impressionist look. I aways seem to go for Cezanne or Van Gogh. Today it was Cezanne.

Day 79 – Chrysanthemum

Mum

Three times today I thought of getting something posted so it would be done. Three times I got distracted by something else. Then I went downstairs to relax and oh, groan, it never got done. Good thing I had this one in my back pocket from the other day when I took the fisheye lens to North Mountain Park. Such a great example of what the fisheye can do when the subject is right and the focus is in the right place. I added a high pass filter and tweaked the exposure and that’s all. Twenty one days never seemed so long. 

Day 78 – Gone to Seed

Seedy

So today was another busy day but I had stuck the M100 with the Trio28 in my briefcase “just in case”. I decided I needed to get a few more steps in and was driving past North Mountain Park so decided I might as well stop and do a camera walk. I was fascinated with these flowers that have gone to seed with the fall colors in the background. Unfortunately I had the camera set at high ISO and forgot to change it so the images came out kind of grainy. So I decided to just throw on a texture that would mask the grain and also bring out the warm autumn colors I was going for. 

Day 77 – Maple Seeds

Seeds

Well, it’s a good thing I took lot’s of pictures yesterday because today was a busy day and now it’s raining.Maybe there will be raindrop pictures in my future. We’ll see. I could wish that this one had just a bit more depth of field for more focus on the right side of the seed couplet but I do love the beautiful blur of the red leaves of the Japanese Maple trees and the subtle bokah. I did add a high pass filter and some sharpening to get as much detail as possible in the seeds. I also added a texture to create a little more interest in the background. Oh, yes, this was shot with the Sweet50 on the M3.

Day 76 – Leaves

1_Leaves

I decided to forego the grower’s market today in favor of a walk in Lithia Park. So glad I did as the Park is pretty close to peak right now. Even the Japanese Garden which has been peaking closer to November 1st lately. Plenty of color there now this year though.  I also decided I have refrained from using the Sweet 50 long enough and it proved to be the right tool for the job where fall color is concerned. My problem was getting things focused where I wanted them. This one turned out pretty well. I did have to bump up the exposure some. I added a high pass filter and added clarity and vibrance. It still didn’t look right to me so I nudged the brightness and contrast and now I’m very happy with it.

Day 75 – Grasses

Grasses

Well, the good news is it’s day 75. The bad news is there are still 25 days to go. The latest offering from lensbaby is not a lens at all but what they call a creative filter system. I got my Omni last week but today was the first day I really had to play with it. I’m afraid it is going to take a little more practice to get the effects I really want but I do see some potential here. The Omni consists of a ring that attaches to your lens that has some magnetic sockets to which you can attach wands and move them around in front of the lens. It seems to be helpful if you are shooting into a light source. the wand I was using here created a sort of bokah effect as the sunlight bounced off the edges of the wand. Moving the wand around, keeping the image in focus and trying to get the right effect is a bit of a three ring circus. the other wands offer a rainbow effect and a stretching effect. There are also three more supplemental wands that you have to buy separately but I didn’t get around to them today. I considered going black and white with this one but I liked the gold tone so I added vibrance and saturation and a couple of textures with a gold hue to try and tease that out a little more. Well the whole point of this exercise is to learn and I have much to learn about the Omni, which for the record does not come with an instruction manual.

Day 74 – Sunflower Bouquet

Bouquet

Another busy day between church activities and a family dinner. So, I’m reaching into the archives again. This one is from the trip to the Grower’s Market last week. Sadly, they are winding down. This was taken with the Burnside. You can see a bit of the swirly bokah in the background through I added two texturees with dark corners to tone them down a bit. I also adjusted the exposure, and opened up the shadows.